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Question 606

I had a protestant friend ask if we partake of cannibalism when we take communion as the Orthodox believe in transubstantiation (the bread and wine ACTUALLY becomes the body and blood of Christ) and I wasn't sure what to say. Help!"              

Answer to Question 606

Protestants like to believe that they are people of the Bible and hold strongly to a doctrine called Sola Scriptura which teaches that the Bible and only the Bible is the SOLE infallible rule of Faith and that everything necessary for salvation is contained within its pages. They reject Holy Tradition and any writings from the early fathers because they are not part of the Bible. You would think then that they are exemplary Christians who are obedient to the Word of God, but a Christian is someone who follows and joins himself to Christ and sadly they chose to disobey his very commandments. To justify themselves, they try to find fault in the traditional Churches (Orthodox and Roman Catholic) and accuse us of cannibalism. 

Most Protestants believe that the Eucharist, in other words, Holy Communion is just a mere symbol and not the actual presence of Jesus Christ. They will not listen to any argument that proves them wrong except if it is written in the Bible, so where in the Holy Bible does it say or even imply it is just a symbol? The answer is nowhere. On the contrary and in accordance to what Apostolic Christianity has always believed, Holy Communion is Jesus Christ, just as he literally said it was. Holy Communion, the Blessed Eucharist, is the actual Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ, because that is what Christ said it was: “This is my body... This is my blood” ( Matt. 26:26-28; Luke 22:19-20; Mark 14:22-24); because that is what Christ said we must receive in order to have eternal life: “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” ( John 6:48-52; 54-56); and because that is what the Apostles believed: “Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” ( 1 Cor. 11:27-29).

Protestants do not believe that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but are simply symbols and types which represent Christ’s body and blood. If they could, they would even change the very words of our Lord, for He said “This is my body” and not this is symbolic, or a type of my body. He said “This is my blood” and not this is symbolic, or a type of my blood. Of course our eyes see bread and wine and our tongue senses the taste of bread and wine, but things are not as they appear. From the moment the Holy Spirit descended and the Sacrament was perfected, we no longer have that which we see with our eyes or taste with our tongue. We have that which we believe, worship and adore. We have the very Body and Blood of our Christ who communicates to us life and incorruptibility.

Orthodox Christians believe that Holy Communion is the actual Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ (under the appearance of bread and wine) because this is what Christ has told us and because that is what all Christians believed up to the Renaissance era. Even the first Protestants believed this. It was only latter day Protestants, specifically the Ana-Baptist sect that denied the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. To believe it is merely symbolic is to embrace the gospel of the Ana-Baptists and not the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the whole of Orthodox Christianity including the first Protestants. 

But can we be accused of cannibalism? This is not something new, they have been saying it for decades, but they don’t listen to hear the answer, which in the simplest of languages is a big NO. As I said earlier, cannibalism is just a word they like to throw at us to justify, first to themselves and then to us, that they cannot follow and partake of such an inhumane practice. Cannibalism is eating a leg or an arm of another human being, but with Holy Communion we do not partake of a piece of Christ, we partake completely of Christ, his whole body and blood. Christ did use the words eat and drink, but what he meant was that we should join ourselves to his body and become one with him. Protestants take each word in the literal sense and cannot understand the deeper theological meaning of why we must join ourselves to Christ. They do not understand why Christ came into the world and how by his death on the Cross he saved us.

All of Adam’s descendants, until the coming of Christ, had lost the likeness of God and therefore lost the ability to achieve union with God. The only way to save man from death and to unite him with God and eternal life, was to have someone break the chain of inheritance. To do this God, had to create a new Adam that would not inherit the consequences of the fall, but at the same time, he would have to have a common link with the rest of humanity. Christ is therefore the New Adam, He is God become man, but He was not subject to original sin. He was not created like the rest of mankind, but in a miraculous and mysterious way as we are told in the annunciation story where the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. 

Christ was free from all sin and so when he was crucified and laid dead in the tomb, death had no legal claim over Him, and so His body was resurrected and ascended into heaven. Christ’s human nature, free from sin, had broken the barrier that separated us from God. The New Adam had pulled down the middle wall of partition that had been erected by the fall of the Old Adam. In the same that we are all one and share in the fallen human nature of the Old Adam, we can now become one with the renewed and deified human nature of Christ, the New Adam. This is what Holy Communion means, to join ourselves to the deified human nature of Christ and become one with God. This is not cannibalism, it is salvation. But Protestants prefer to ignore and disobey the Lord when he said that if they do not partake of his Body and Blood then they can have no part with him.

Another direct commandment of Our Lord which is rejected in most protestant churches, is Christ's commandment to re-enact the Last Supper. He commanded that Christians “Do this in remembrance of me.” But do what exactly in remembrance of Him? Pass out shots of grape juice and chili crackers? No Blessing? No proclamation of the sacred Words of Our Lord on Holy Thursday? No consecration of the Bread and Wine? Our Lord commands us in Luke 22:17-20 to re-enact the Last Supper as He prescribed. 

Yet many modern Christian churches never have communion or do so infrequently, and when they do there is no “breaking of the bread.” Nothing is done that Our Lord commanded. Christ's Words to us after blessing the bread and wine and proclaiming it literally to be His very Body and Blood were: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Most of the modern Christian communities disobey the Words of our Lord in His command, and simply pass out “grape juice” and “communion niblets/chili crackers,” as if this fulfils the commandment of our Lord and Saviour. Conversely, the Orthodox, the Roman Catholic (and some Lutheran/Anglican churches) are true to Our Lord and actually “Do this in remembrance of Him.” Even the first Protestants were faithful to Our Lord in doing this “in remembrance of Him.” Why are the modern Christian churches exempt from this Divine command? This is an unbiblical and anti-biblical tradition of man embraced by the modern Christian and totally unheard of in historic Christianity.

Have these sacred words of Our Saviour ever been uttered in these modern churches as Christ has commanded? And if not, why not? Where does the modern pastor find his exemption to the commands of Jesus Christ? “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:19-20)

And from the Apostle Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians on the Lord Supper:

“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)